Vox Eternity

June 14th, 2018

PROGRAM NOTE

This piece was a wedding gift for Mattie Kaiser and Aaron Butler, and the prompt was “use something borrowed”. So I decided to rework the Andante movement of the Bach G Major Gamba Sonata – I borrowed the piano part, but the viola part is all mine.

I sometimes give solo performances for homebound seniors through “Concerts in Motion”. One day I showed up at Pedro’s apartment on the Upper West Side. Upon entering I saw a piano with stunning pictures of Pedro in his youth on top – he was a pianist, percussionist, and an actor. Then I looked and saw him on his leather couch against a bright yellow wall. He is blind and wears big, dark glasses now, but still rose to an impressive height to shake my hand.

Just above him on the wall is a large picture of him sitting in the same spot on the couch, but to his right was a lovely older woman and a very fuzzy cat. The social worker then leaned over to me and said “you should know that his cat died 3 weeks ago and his wife died 2 weeks ago”.

Stunned with this info, I started to play Bach, wondering about a time when I might not be with my husband. This piece is a reminder to always make the best of the moments you have with the ones you love.